Sugar Addiction in Rats: Links to Drugs of Abuse

描述（由申请人提供）： 这项研究的目的和目标是调查糖和药物成瘾的神经和行为相关性。最近，我国对饮食失调和肥胖的认识有所提高，这导致许多人猜测食物的成瘾特性，以及这种成瘾可能与我们社会目前面临的过度饮食流行病有关。最近在啮齿动物中的研究表明，糖暴食可导致与药物依赖性具有一些行为和神经化学相似性的依赖性（Colantuoni等人，2001; Colantuoni等人，2002年）。该提案计划通过对糖的渴望、敏感性和与其他已知滥用药物的交叉敏感性进行行为调查，详细阐述这些发现。此外，这项研究将研究糖和药物成瘾之间的神经化学相似性在脑桥核。通过进一步阐明食物和药物之间可能的联系，可能会开发新的药理学和行为治疗方法来治疗饮食失调。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objectives and aims of this research proposal are to investigate the neural and behavioral correlates of sugar and drug addictions. The recent increased awareness of eating disorders and obesity in our country has led many to speculate about the addictive properties of food, and how this addiction may be related to the over-eating epidemic our society is currently facing. Recent research in rodents has indicated that sugar bingeing can lead to dependency that shares some behavioral and neurochemical similarities with drug dependency (Colantuoni et al., 2001; Colantuoni et al., 2002). This proposal plans to elaborate on these findings, by behaviorally investigating sugar craving, sensitization and cross-sensitization with other known drugs of abuse. Moreover, this research will examine neurochemical similarities between sugar and drug addiction in the nucleus accumbens. By further elucidating a possible link between food and drugs, new pharmacological and behavioral treatments may be developed to treat eating disorders.